


The most popular Ravenclaw

by engineer10349



Category: The Shannara Chronicles (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5875075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engineer10349/pseuds/engineer10349
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hogwarts AU. Princess Rover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The most popular Ravenclaw

Amberle had always striven to do be the best. She had read all of the required reading for her entire first year before it even started. She had been somewhat surprised when she had been sorted into Gryffindor and not Ravenclaw like her parents, but once she showed them her grades they regained faith that she was not ‘one of those Gryffindor losers who couldn’t even hold their wand right’. She always got a letter from them after every test result, telling her how proud they were of her. They never talked about anything other than her grades, or what career she wanted to go into. She knew that they meant well, that they only wanted the best for her, but she felt so disconnected from them. They didn’t even really know her. They just knew percentages on a piece of paper.

She never told her parents when she joined the Quidditch team. She knew they’d say that it was a waste of time, that she should use free time to study, because they wouldn’t understand that she just couldn’t live for study. She needed something that actually made her happy. She needed a reason to wake up in the morning and potions class really wasn’t it. Her grades never dropped anyway, so they never suspected that she’d changed anything. 

She did tell her parents when she made Prefect though. They were so proud. They told her how good it would look on all sorts of applications. Both of her parents had been Prefects, they had basically assumed she would be too. She had been so scared that she would be rejected and she would have to tell her parents that she didn’t get it. But it had all worked out. They were happy. She wondered if she was happy too.

Study didn’t leave much time for friends. She was always rushing around, trying to get to all her classes and then fit in all her Quidditch training. She got the feeling that the other Gryffindors didn’t like her. Most of them called her a ‘teachers pet’ and rolled their eyes whenever she put up her hand to answer a question. She wondered if she would have been better off in Ravenclaw. When she stayed late at the library there were usually a few Ravenclaws there too, and they seemed to smile at her a little. 

The first Quidditch match of her final year came around, and she was so nervous to win. She was the Seeker, most of the time the match came down to her actions, and she could always see the blame in her teammate’s eyes when she lost. They threw around some halfhearted ‘don’t worry about it’s, but she was never convinced. They were up against Ravenclaw, the house she often felt she should have been put in, but she didn’t let that stop her from wanting to beat them.

The other Seeker saw the Snitch first. Amberle mentally kicked herself and chased after it as fast as she could. She was closing in on it until suddenly everything went black.

She woke up in the infirmary with a very concerned girl that she had never met before sitting beside her. “You’re awake!” she said, sounding incredibly relieved. Amberle tried to get up, but the girl pushed you down. “Whoa, you need to stay down for a bit. You got hit with a Bludger. Well, I hit you with a Bludger. Hi, I’m Eretria, I’m a Beater for Ravenclaw, and so sorry.” 

“Okay, well Eretria, you can go now.” Amberle didn’t mean to be rude, she just didn’t want the girl to feel obligated to stay with her. 

“That is not happening. Look, I’m really sorry, and I’m going to keep you company until you get better. It’s non-negotiable.” Eretria had made it her policy to always stay with the people she’d hurt. It wasn’t that she thought it made up for it, but she thought it made it somewhat better, and that was the best that she could do. She had never wanted to be a Beater, but she happened to have a talent for it (and nothing else apparently). She desperately wanted a scholarship to get away from her parents and if playing Quidditch could do that then she’d do it. Even if it made her miserable to wonder if she really was just like her parents, like they had always told her.

She had found it incredibly annoying whenever she told people that she hurt people, and they said ‘oh you didn’t mean to’. Of course she meant to. She hit a Bludger right at them. And yet people didn’t care. They treated her like everyone else. People’s ability to justify abusers was staggering. And yet they cowered away from the abused. Almost every time she came to her victim’s bed in hospital they were alone, their ‘friends’ nowhere to be seen. 

She had always known that’s how the system worked, but it was strange to be on this side of it. Growing up her parents had always hit her. She tried to tell people the first few times, but all she got was ‘oh don’t be silly they wouldn’t do that’, ‘don’t say things like that’, ‘I know them they’re good people’, ‘don’t cry wolf nobody will believe you if it really happens’ and ‘kids and their imaginations’. She watched the news as they talked about domestic violence as if the abuser was the one who truly needed help - as if they were incapable of stopping themselves. But they asked why the abused didn’t leave, never the abuser. So clearly they understood that the abuser did want to be there, even knowing that they ‘couldn’t stop themselves’, which made it pretty clear that they were still the terrible person. Or how substances were ‘making them do it’ when they were choosing to take them, and knowing the outcome. Yet somehow poor people were denied food stamps for taking the same substances, and that was all their own fault. 

Her parents had always hated Quidditch. It was why she had been so desperate to play it. She never told people that, she knew that it would sound petty. But they didn’t understand that it was a way to spite her abusers and that was worth everything to her. To know that no matter what they did, there were still some things that they couldn’t control. That she could win, not every battle, but this battle. To remind herself that she was still in control of some things.

She had been so happy to be in Ravenclaw. Partially because her parents had always told her that she was dumb, and she had been sorted into what was considered the most intelligent house. But mostly because her parents were both in Hufflepuff, and she was so happy not to be like them. She had always tried to avoid the Hufflepuff students. She knew that everybody thought that they were super nice, but she knew that people could act nice one minute, and then turn around and be completely different. And she didn’t like people that reminded her of her parents. Of course, she couldn’t tell people that, so she just told people ‘Hufflepuff’s are lame’.

“I mean, I guess you can stay if you want,” said Amberle reluctantly, still trying to give the girl an out. 

“Great! So you’re the Prefect for Gryffindor, huh? You must be fun at parties,” said Eretria, trying to get this girl to warm up to her.

“I don’t go to many so I wouldn’t know. I imagine there aren’t too many parties in Ravenclaw.” Eretria laughed.

“Are you kidding? We barely study. We’re the smart house, remember? I mean, sure, there are some people who really want that 100%, but mostly it’s just trying to have fun to make it through another day of learning the textbook without understanding it. What’s Gryffindor like?”

“Oh, we study. We set up help sessions so the older students help the younger ones. Then we have wild parties to try to remember to want to live. You don’t do help sessions?”

“Well, the thing about being the smart house is that everybody’s too scared to ask for help because they think that everyone else will think that they’re stupid. So if we get something wrong we just say that we ‘weren’t trying’ or ‘got busy’ or whatever. Explaining it now makes me realize that it’s not a very good system, is it?”

“Well clearly you’re smart enough to get through it. I wouldn’t have been.”

“You actually made Prefect. I get through with 51% on most tests and you think I’m smarter than you?”

“I don’t know. ‘Smart’ is such a hard thing to judge. Does it really matter whether or not you can remember a bunch of facts and write them in a 2 hour exam? Maybe the smart thing to do is just do the minimum to pass. I mean, no offense, but you probably don’t want to sit the N.E.W.T.s.”

“No, I don’t. You do?”

“Yeah, I mean it’s all my parents ever talk about. It’s all they ever ask about. ‘How’s the preparation going, Amberle?’ ‘Have you done the 89 practice tests yet, Amberle?’ ‘Don’t let us down, Amberle.’ You know.” Eretria didn’t know. Her parents never asked her about her results. She had stayed in school for as long as possible just to get away from them, and they didn’t like it when she was in an environment that they couldn’t control. They never talked about school. They talked about how she didn’t clean the dishes well enough and then broke her ribs.

“Yeah, I know. Do you actually want to do it though? Because you don’t have to do what your parents want.”

“I want to do it. I wish they talked about other things, but I do want to do it. I mean, I have no actual idea what I really want to do with my life, or really who I even am, but hey, this seems like a reasonable way to go. Do you know what you want to do after this?”

“Anything that gets me out of home sounds good to me.”

“Yeah, I want to leave home too. Just be free of them. Find people who don’t bring up stuff I did 10 years ago and know me now.”

“That sounds nice. Maybe we should move in together after school,” Eretria joked, but she held eye contact with Amberle and looked at her like she’d move in tomorrow if she wanted. Amberle held her eye contact and smiled.

“Maybe.” Amberle said it like she was joking too, but Eretria got butterflies she hadn’t felt in a long time and she felt like she had a real shot with this girl. 

Eretria stayed friends with Amberle when she was better. She’d never connected with anybody so well before, and she’d never really felt like this before. This intense happiness whenever Amberle sat next to her in class. Or when she saw Amberle anywhere, really. She had already fallen so hard for her, but she wasn’t sure it was reciprocated. Amberle smiled at her, and sometimes she thought she might be flirting a bit, but she wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t going to risk never seeing Amberle again by making a move. So they just spent all their free time in the library helping each other study. Eretria’s grades had never been higher and Amberle had never felt happier.

The first holiday break came around and Eretria mentioned that she would be staying at school. She said it was because she liked the quiet and home was too noisy, which was true really; she didn’t particularly enjoy her parents screaming at her that she was useless every time she went home. And she certainly didn’t get screamed at here, which was nice. Amberle then said, “yeah me too”, even though she had been planning to go home. She sent her parents a letter telling them that she had to stay at school this time, that she was doing an extra credit assignment, and they were more than happy to let her stay. 

They ended up spending all of their time in the Gryffindor common room. Even though other houses weren’t allowed to be there, even on holidays, nobody else was really around, and those who were really didn’t care. Eretria found it amusing that the password was ‘Harry Potter’. Even after all this time, he was still the most well-known Gryffindor, and God knows the entire house took the chance every time that they had the opportunity to remind people that the Boy Who Lived was one of them. Amberle was her first friend from Gryffindor, most of her friends were in Slytherin. 

Slytherin had changed from the days of Voldemort. Anybody who used the word ‘pure blood’ or other racist term was personally cursed by the Slytherin Prefect. It was a system that the teachers let slide because they all felt that anybody who thought that somebody should be hurt on their blood status deserved to be hurt based on their chosen racist attitudes. Nobody could press charges though, because even though there were hundreds of witnesses, all of them would state that absolutely nothing happened. The Slytherins were made to swear an oath on their first day - never again. So when people brought up the brave Harry Potter from Gryffindor and his defeat of the evil Slytherin Voldemort, they didn’t get defensive. Because it was true. And they understood that people’s criticism of the Slytherin house came from very real racist attitudes that had killed a lot of people, and was not actually a personal attack on them, and when other people from other house’s met them and realized that they weren’t racist jerks they were really rather happy to be friends with them so it really wasn’t a problem.

Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, however, were always annoyed that Gryffindor largely got the credit for what really was a team effort. Eretria’s parents had both fought with Harry, a fact that they reminded her about constantly. People called them heroes, but they didn’t understand that somebody who was a hero in one situation could be a monster in another. Amberle’s parents were ‘visiting family’ at the time of the battle, a story they glossed over whenever someone asked about it. Amberle liked to think that being put in Gryffindor meant that she would have been the brave hero her parents couldn’t be, but sometimes she wondered if she really would’ve stayed.

Amberle and Eretria had the common room to themselves, but they sat as close as possible on the couch together. They were mostly just catching up on textbook readings but every so often one of them got really sick of it so they started a half an hour long conversation. Amberle found a way to work in, ‘so are you dating anyone?’ into the conversation. Eretria shook her head, asked Amberle the same question, and got a shaken head in response as well. Amberle smiled, looked at Eretria’s lips, and started moving just a little closer.

And then some random Gryffindor walked in and Amberle moved back. He looked at Eretria, noting that she was in Ravenclaw and shouldn’t actually be in there, and then shrugged and went to his room. He was only a third year, but he was already sick of classes and studying and tests to the point where he just didn’t care anymore. Earlier he had seen some students in the restricted section of the library and trying to practice very bad spells on each other. Were they going to hurt themselves? Probably. Was it his problem? No. He was just trying to care about his own life, his own grades. School was an amazingly demoralizing institution. 

Amberle and Eretria went back to reading their textbooks, although neither could really focus. Eretria was trying not to blush. Had she almost kissed her? Did she like her back? Could a girl like Amberle from such a nice family ever like a girl like her? Amberle was so smart, and she seemed to have her whole life together, and Eretria wasn’t sure if she could really fit into Amberle’s life. Sure, at school they could study together, but would Amberle ever take her home to meet her parents? How would she feel if Eretria told her that she didn’t want Amberle to meet her parents? 

Amberle was disappointed that she had lost her nerve. Eretria had looked like she was happy with the direction things were going in, that she would kiss her back. But now she was just sitting there, reading the textbook. Maybe she had misread things. Maybe Eretria was just being polite. Eretria was so smart; after starting to study just an hour a week her grades had already drastically improved. She seemed so sure of herself and confident, could she really like somebody like Amberle? Amberle had always felt like an outsider, and Eretria had made her feel like she belonged. Belonged with her. But would Eretria ever introduce her to her friends? Would she be ashamed to be dating the Gryffindor Prefect? They seemed to be going in two different directions anyway, could they really be together after the school year ended?

Amberle didn’t really have time to think through any of the answers to her questions because suddenly there was pressure on her lips. Eretria was kissing her. Amberle kissed back immediately once she realized what was happening, and pulled Eretria closer to her so that she was sitting on her lap. She wanted to ask what this was but she was so scared that it would end it before it had begun, so she just put one hand in her hair and enjoyed the feeling of her tongue in her mouth. 

Eventually they needed to breathe, so Eretria pulled away. She stayed just centimeters from Amberle’s face though; she could feel the hand in her hair wanting to keep her close. Amberle looked at her like she wanted to say something but was biting her tongue, but Eretria couldn’t bite hers. She had to know. “I love you, be my girlfriend,” Eretria whispered, vaguely hoping Amberle wouldn’t hear her. Amberle smiled, relief flooding her system.

“I love you too, and I would love to be your girlfriend.” Eretria was so happy to hear those words she almost couldn’t believe it. After years of her parents telling her how worthless and unlovable she was, the most incredible girl she’d ever met loved her back. She almost wanted to cry, but she quickly shoved those pesky emotions down like she always did and kissed her new girlfriend again. Amberle’s hand landed at the hem of Eretria’s shirt and Eretria instantly pushed the hand away. Amberle was somewhat surprised but she obviously didn’t want to push Eretria into anything so she kept her hands to herself.

Eretria had never dated anyone before. She had never shown anyone the scars on her body, and she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to. How would Amberle react to the bruises, the cuts, the bones that never got the chance to heal properly because they were broken with such frequency? How could she possibly explain all the damage? She realized she hadn’t really thought this through. And yet, she was so happy to be holding Amberle right now, she decided that that was tomorrow’s problem. 

They spent the rest of the holidays together. They stayed in Amberle’s room, sitting up in her bed, vaguely trying to study but inevitably just making out. Amberle was surprised that Eretria wanted to go so slow, but she didn’t mind. Eretria wondered how long this could go on for until Amberle brought it up, but she was still hoping that they could just exist in this perfect bubble for a little while longer.

The next semester commenced and they had to go back to separate rooms. They had ended up falling asleep in the same bed most nights, and they both missed each others presence more than they cared to admit. They only had one class together since Amberle took all the advanced classes and Eretria didn’t, so they mostly only saw each other in the library after class. It felt like a painful step backward, and since they were both busy with schoolwork and Quidditch practice, they didn’t really spend that much time together. 

Eretria couldn’t take the distance. After weeks of barely seeing her girlfriend she snuck into the Gryffindor common room, which was rather easy since she knew the password. Everyone was asleep so she quietly crept into Amberle’s room and slipped under the sheets. Amberle stirred a bit but simply put her arm around her girlfriend and went back to a peaceful sleep. Eretria slept better than she had in months.

It wasn’t a particularly well thought out plan. When they finally woke up a Gryffindor teacher was standing over them, looking mostly amused but trying to stay serious. She went on about how this was ‘a very serious violation of the rules’ and Eretria was suspended for 2 weeks. Which meant she had to go home. Amberle never moved the arm she had around Eretria, but she tightened it progressively as the speech went on. Eretria tried to seem calm, while dreading just how much pain her parents could put her through in two weeks.

Eretria arrived home a few days later, deliberately taking the longest possible route and ‘accidentally’ missing a few trains. Her parents were furious that she had ‘let them down like this’ and proceeded to use several forbidden curses along with a silencing spell. Eretria passed out on the floor after an hour, partly due to the pain, partly due to the fact that she had made sure to load up on alcohol before she arrived. When she woke up they had tied her up in one of the closets. In the pitch black darkness she tried to think of Amberle; thinking of her always made anything better.

After a few hours her parents removed her restraints and told her how much they loved her. They said ‘we hoped you’ve learned her lesson’ and ‘we really don’t want to hurt you’. They made her her favorite meal and sat at the table like nothing had happened. They asked her how everything was going and she said ‘fine’, smiling, part of her still believing that maybe her parents did love her deep down. But as she ate the first real meal she’d had in days she thought of Amberle, a relationship that she knew was actually based on love, and she knew that even if her parents did love her, that wasn’t an excuse to treat somebody like this.

Eretria wanted to go to her room the second she finished eating, but she knew her parents would tell her that was ‘rude’ and then break a few more bones, so she sat there patiently. Her father decided that they should play some dumb board game and Eretria just smiled. She didn’t even need to say anything, he was already getting the game out and setting it up. They played for a few hours; she intentionally lost each time. She wondered if they could tell that she always threw these games because she knew it put them in a better mood. 

She finally got to lock herself in her room and lay on the bed. She wanted to cry, partly because the pain was still so intense and partly because she was already emotionally exhausted. In some ways the worst part of being here was when her parents were nice. Because sometimes she liked it. She forgot for a moment all of the horrible things that they’d done and thought maybe they were going to change, maybe it would be different, maybe she could just have the good times, the family she’d always wanted. But it was always the same, and each injury came with it’s own emotional pain, which reminded her again that it was all a lie, that they didn’t really love her.

One week flew by. Eretria was well and truly used to the pain, and without Amberle, her parent’s presence was vaguely comforting. She could never really talk to them, she would never tell them about her girlfriend for fear that they would hurt her, but it was nice to hear somebody say ‘I love you’, even if it was a complete lie. But when they watched movies together all day after her parents took the time off work because they ‘missed her’, she couldn’t deny that she would probably always feel some level of affection for these people, despite knowing that they were just trying to emotionally manipulate her into staying and putting up with their abuse.

They were halfway through the latest James Bond movie when there was a knock on their door. Eretria’s father answered it, as he always made sure to answer the door and the phone in order to maintain control. “It’s nice to meet you.” Eretria recognized that voice instantly. Amberle. Amberle was here. Amberle couldn’t be here. Eretria raced to the door to see her girlfriend beaming at her, no idea of what she’d be in for if she stepped through that door. Eretria had to stop it. She retreated behind a facade of nonchalance and stared at Amberle like she hated her.

“Oh my God, what are you doing here, Alison, was it? Look, I get it, I’m awesome, but like, I don’t want to be your friend, okay? Just leave me the hell alone!” Eretria said, watching the hurt in Amberle’s eyes grow. Amberle, however, was not an idiot, and she was well aware that Eretria knew her name and that Eretria was clearly playing down their relationship for her parents. 

“You can come back to school, Eretria. I talked it over with a few teachers who really like me and they got your punishment lessened in exchange for tutoring some first years,” said Amberle, deciding that telling Eretria’s parents the real state of their relationship was Eretria’s choice and that she shouldn’t bring it up.

“Well, isn’t that good?” Eretria’s father asked pleasantly, dread building inside of Eretria. “But it’s late, so how about you come inside Amberle and then you two can go off to school together tomorrow?” Eretria tried to subtly shake her head, but either Amberle didn’t notice or she ignored it.

“That sounds great!” said Amberle, stepping inside. “Oh, you’re watching a movie?”

“Yes, the new James Bond. Want to watch it with us?” asked Eretria’s father, with that smile only Eretria could tell was predatory. 

“Oh yes, I love those movies!” said Amberle, completely oblivious. They went to the lounge room where Eretria’s mother motioned for Amberle to sit down next to her.

“She stays with me,” said Eretria firmly, grabbing Amberle’s hand and sitting on the floor a few meters away from the couch with her parents. Amberle was a little confused, but she didn’t resist, and she quite enjoyed the possessive arm Eretria had put around her waist. 

They watched the movie in silence. Amberle was completely engaged with the movie, but Eretria was mostly just watching her parents. She wasn’t sure what they were going to do, or if they were going to do anything, but she grew more terrified as the minutes passed. Eventually the movie ended and Eretria knew they were going to have to figure out the sleeping arrangements. “Amberle, how about you sleep in the guest room?” asked Eretria’s father.

Eretria had spent a lot of time in the guest room. It was enchanted so that no noise could be heard, and she couldn’t leave without her parent’s command. “She stays in my room,” said Eretria, trying to project confidence when she had none.

“Well, I don’t think that would be very appropriate ...” began her mother.

“I’ll stay in the guest room,” said Eretria, desperate to project her girlfriend from being subjected to the things that she had. 

“Well then, I suppose that would be okay,” said her mother, clearly somewhat taken aback. Eretria knew that she had just exposed her greatest weakness, that she would do anything for Amberle, but she hoped that this would be the last time either of them encountered her parents again so maybe it would be okay. Amberle looked confused as to why this conversation was happening, why Eretria wouldn’t want her in the guest room, but she just kept her mouth shut. 

Eretria took Amberle to her room, showed her where everything was and then turned to leave. Amberle grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “What’s up with you? You seem really ... sad,” said Amberle, not wanting to offend her girlfriend but wanting to understand why she looked like she’d just watched her dog get run over. 

“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine,” said Eretria. It was a true statement, in her opinion. As long as Amberle was safe, as long as she was unharmed, she was fine. She could take the pain, but she couldn’t watch Amberle suffer. She broke free of Amberle’s weak hold and went down to the guest room.

Eretria had never fallen asleep when she was in this room. Even the first time she was sent here, when she wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, she had known something bad was going to happen, and the dread kept her awake. Now it was almost midnight and she lay awake, waiting. Then she heard the inevitable sound of the door opening. She didn’t move, she never did, she just closed her eyes, pretended to be asleep, and wished that this time the danger would just leave her alone if she ignored it. “You like that girl.” It was her mother’s voice.

“Oh, I think she loves her,” said her father. Eretria had her eyes open now, staring at her parents with their wands raised, ready to attack.

“Is that true, Eretria?” asked her mother. Eretria didn’t talk, she had learned that actually giving responses to her parent’s questions when they were like this was never productive. “It’s rude not to answer your mother, Eretria. You know, I work hard for you. I love you. A mother’s love is unconditional, don’t you know? But there’s nothing worse than children who do not respect their parents; they are ungrateful. So, respect me, and answer my question!” screamed her mother. Eretria remained silent, breathing steadily, trying to prepare her body for what was to come. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure behind her parents. She realized it was Amberle when Amberle’s wand lit up and fired various spells at her parents. Eretria realized that her parents were now both frozen solid and couldn’t help but laugh with relief. “I changed the enchantments on the room when I ‘went to the bathroom’. You can get out but they can’t. They really should have tried harder in school, their magic is really quite basic,” explained Amberle as she carried her half-laughing, half-sobbing girlfriend out of the room and put her in her own bed. 

“Thanks,” said Eretria as Amberle crawled into bed next to her, holding her as tight as possible. Amberle wasn’t exactly sure how they’d hurt Eretria, but she wasn’t going to ask for details. She just wanted her to be safe. That was the one and only night that Eretria had ever been in that house and fell asleep without fear.

They went back to school the next day. Amberle spent the entire train ride catching Eretria up on the subjects she’d missed. Even though Amberle didn’t take most of Eretria’s classes, she had still gotten the lesson content from the teachers, and learned it herself, all so she could teach it to Eretria. Eretria didn’t particularly care much for learning the content she’d missed, she was still high on adrenaline. Was she safe now? Was it really over? Did Amberle see her as damaged now? How often could she see Amberle after today?

They arrived late at night and Eretria walked Amberle to the Gryffindor dormitory. “Actually, I think we want the Ravenclaw dormitory,” said Amberle.

“Okay, 1. you’re usually so responsible I’m shocked. And 2. I literally just finished my suspension for the stunt you want to pull right now,” said Eretria.

“Well, actually, I am in fact now in Ravenclaw. There was no official rule that said you couldn’t switch houses. So I asked my favorite Ravenclaw teacher if it was possible, and she said she’d argue my case for me, and well, I might need to borrow your uniforms for a bit but ...” Amberle stopped talking as Eretria picked her up and kissed her all the way to the Ravenclaw dormitory. The Raven had some stupid riddle that Eretria didn’t even hear but Amberle threatened it with curses she shouldn’t even know about and the door opened right up.

The wonderful thing about heteronormativity was that there was no actual regulation against students sleeping together, by any definition of the term. Boys and girls had separate quarters and were not allowed in each others spaces, but that was obviously not a rule that Amberle and Eretria needed to break. Besides, the teachers were all pleasantly surprised that Eretria was capable of such high quality work all of a sudden, so they were really the biggest ‘Amtria’ shippers (that’s the name they had all come up with after a very heated debate in a meeting that was supposed to be about curriculum changes), and they had no desire to break the couple up. The old Ravenclaw seeker had recently got expelled, so the entire house of Ravenclaw was thrilled to have Amberle on board. In fact, she was probably the most popular Ravenclaw. Amberle’s parents were thrilled that she was ‘just like them’, and Amberle decided not to mention that the change had nothing to do with them and everything to do with wanting to be closer to her girlfriend.

Now that a precedent had been set, a few other students wanted to change houses. Quite a few, actually. It turned out that trying to assign groups to people when they were so young meant that quite a lot of people ended up somewhere that they didn’t feel was right a few years later. Some students who had a lot of friends in one house changed over just to be able to spend more time with them; while teachers constantly gave speeches about how that wasn’t a good idea, being with their friends made a lot of students happier and fewer students dropped out. Obviously Amberle and Eretria had inspired almost every inter-house same sex couple to do exactly what they had done, although the teachers were always somehow painfully blind as to their motives. One Slytherin boy went to talk to the teacher holding his boyfriend’s hand, and he got a speech on how he was making the right decision since he was clearly made for Hufflepuff because they’re more ‘affectionate, in a friendly way’. He was going to ask if they were more affectionate in the gay way before his boyfriend shot him a look that said ‘please don’t; I love your jokes but he won’t get them’.

Eretria did show Amberle all of her scars and bruises, the night they returned actually, and while Amberle was concerned that she would accidentally hurt her girlfriend, she didn’t react with horror like Eretria had feared. Eretria found tutoring first years incredibly annoying, and she needed Amberle to come along so she didn’t devolve into shouting ‘but it’s so easy!’. Amberle still managed to help Eretria and pull top grades, and Eretria had recently gotten her first 100%. Amberle wrote to her parents, telling them about her very smart girlfriend with very bad parents, and they agreed to let her stay with them when school ended, including during the breaks. On her first visit they pulled Eretria aside and told her that they expected her to ask their permission before proposing. Eretria smiled and nodded, then quickly told Amberle to put her engagement ring in her pocket before her parents saw it.


End file.
